Weekly Thoughts

4/6/06 – Religion

Hi all,

I've been thinking about the most common issue people write me about, or that I encounter as I travel around helping house based churches and churches who want Relationship Based Christianity: Religion.

Being religious instead of being Christian is a hideous poison that masks its identity so convincingly that people think they are serving God when in fact they are serving man's ideas of what God wants.

The issues Jesus addressed in the gospels were all about man made rules and regulations as imposed through the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Priests of the temple. The Pharisees actually began as a holiness movement more than a century BC, but quickly degenerated into an emphasis on their own rules by which they enslaved people...and all the time they thought that was what God wanted!

The apostles dealt with it in Acts 15 when the question came up about whether the non-Jewish disciples had to obey the Law of Moses or not. Peter asked why they would consider putting upon them a yoke which neither they nor their forefathers could bear.

It was decided they did NOT have to obey Moses, but only common moral and cultural considerations were required...abstain from sexual sin and don't eat blood/things strangled for sake of the Jews in the area...not wanting to be a stumbling block to them.

Other than basic laws in society and consideration for others, nothing else was required.

Here are some examples of people in religion without knowing about it:

A student came to me convinced God was mad at him because he was no longer getting up at 5am to pray. He was nearly to the point of tears as he explained that with school and work, he struggled greatly just to get out of bed at 6am to make it to work, let alone 5am to pray.

I asked him how long it had been since he stopped getting up at 5, and he replied it had been about 3 weeks. I asked him if, in chapel services or church the last 3 weeks, the Lord had spoken to him to express his disappointment. "No", he replied. I asked if he was still learning things in school--was the Holy Spirit still revealing things to him. "Yes, nothing has changed" he said.

Through some more discussion I was able to help him see that the desire to get up at 5am was his decision, motivated in part by the idea God would be pleased with him, and to a lesser extent motivated by the desire to be more effective in prayer. He went away relieved and admonished not to do things to "please" God, but rather with a pure heart walk in love and treat his neighbor as himself.

A man went to a Wednesday night service not to hear from God, but because he went fishing the previous Sunday and felt bad, and wanted to show God he still was serious about Him and didn't want the Lord to forget some prayer requests he had.

A woman went to every Sunday evening service, and in fact to every church service that church had, all she confided, in the hopes that God wouldn't forget her children who weren't serving God...she wanted to show Him how serious and how important it was to her.

A man felt pressured to buy a car (Lexus) that was more expensive than his family could afford because he felt it was a show of his faith and expected of those whose faith is working.

Another kept spending via credit cards to keep up a lifestyle which reflected one of faith and success, only to struggle with payments and eventually bankrupt and mad at God and the "faith" movement.

A woman danced around the front of the church at each service performing for God. When I asked her about it she confided that she was in financial need and she thought that if he liked her dancing He would be more inclined to meet her needs.

Cain is the father of all religion. He offered the work of his hands to God, hoping to convince God to accept his offering instead of humbling himself to go to Abel and get a lamb to offer a blood sacrifice.

Religion is man's effort to come to God on man's terms, trying in effect to motivate God to accept human efforts and human terms.

Cain set up his own rule(s) for coming to God, but those rules were rejected. God actually sought to reconcile Cain before and after his act of murder. The rules and means by which he wanted to come to God were rejected, but God still loved Cain.

I've come across people who fast to move God, crawl on their knees to move God, pray all night to move God, give money to move God, dress one way or another to move God, worship on a certain day...and on and on it goes.

I even know of one lady who upon receiving prayer for her vision to be corrected back to 20/20, stomped her glasses on the platform at church, only to be pulled over on the drive home under suspicion of DUI because she was weaving back and forth so much. It was only that she was as blind as a bat, not drunk as the officer had supposed, for she had thought her action of crushing her glasses would motivate God to heal her and she thought she was in faith. Actually, she committed the sin of presumption.

(Presumption being the act of thinking something is God's responsibility when in fact it is our responsibility)

Many born-again disciples of Jesus are still motivated by, and unknowingly trapped in religious acts. Paul is speaking of The Law of Israel in Romans 10:3 but he could be talking about people in our generation when he said:

"For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God."

In Acts 17:24-28 in part he said: "God...does not live in a temple made with hands, neither is he worshipped with man's hands, as though he needed anything...for in him we live and move and have our being."

Most of us know religion when we see it, but laying down the parameters of what it is can be difficult. Perhaps the following will help.

In II Corinthians 3: 6,7,9 Paul defines three elements of religion, for he calls it:

...if the ministry of death...

...if the ministry of condemnation...

...the letter kills but the Spirit gives life...

Religion is a ministry of death. From the Crusaders who thought they were doing God a favor 600 and more years ago, to militant Islam today, to religious Christians who are bound in man made rules and regulations and seek to bind up others in their bondage, it's all religion and it is death.

A young couple requested counseling, actually the wife did. Her husband had become obsessed with a Church of Christ church in the Boulder, Colorado area. As the 'elders' guided him, he gradually imposed strict codes of conduct in their marriage...including no public swimming because someone might lust over her including himself; no TV because they might sin, no outside friends because they were all going to hell...you had to be baptized in his church to make it, and once there you had to obey a whole host of rules and regulations.

In spite of our best efforts they ended up divorced. Religion killed that marriage.

In I Corinthians 15:56(b) Paul says the strength of sin is the Law. Religion and it's self imposed rules actually give strength to sin.

I've likened it to me trying to give up Haagen Das Chocolate Chocolate Chip ice cream back when we lived in a tri-level in the Boulder, Colorado area

I would sit in our family room on the lower level watching the 10pm news on TV, and my eyes would go up and over the TV to the refrigerator on the next level directly in my line of sight. It was like the ice cream was calling to me from the freezer...I could imagine putting that pint on the counter, letting it thaw a bit so the edges were soft. I would take my spoon around the edges building up a tablespoon full, then putting it in my mouth letting it melt as the chocolate chunks softened and then dissolved...oh where was I, ok, back to reality...

The more I, and I emphasize the "I" tried to stop eating it, the more I ate! I was approaching it from the standpoint of ME trying to stop. My own "law" gave strength to my sin.

This is why a person trying to stop a habit sees the habit become all consuming...

Around my Haagen Das experience I learned to approach things God was dealing with me on from a different perspective. I began seeing that temptation as a threat to the sweet fellowship I was having with the Lord. I concentrated on how I hated the grievance in my spirit when I sinned. I hated breaking that fellowship.

Instead of struggling to hold onto my own rules and regulations that were really my ideas of how to implement what I thought God was telling me, I began to relax and enjoy the fellowship with the Father and Jesus more, and see any temptation as a threat to that fellowship.

I began addressing the issues from a motivation and perspective of Life rather than religion.

Paul also stated in Romans 3:19-20 that the Law, (religion) came so that the whole world would discover it is in sin, and therefore everyone would see they are guilty of sin. He also said that by the works of The Law no person could be justified.

The effect of religion is that of making all participants know they are not worthy, and that they are in fact, a sinner.

As I quoted earlier; religion, legalism, the Law; however you want to state it, it brings condemnation to the person. Condemnation is all about you and is in your mind...and it drives you away from God. Conviction is from God in the spirit down inside and draws you to Him.

If you grew up with a parent who would tell you to empty the trash, clean your room, and mow the grass before dinner, and then you did 2 of the 3 and they didn't acknowledge those 2, but you caught you-know-what because of #3 you didn't do...you were raised under religion, the law, legalism.

If you prepared a wonderful big Thanksgiving meal, and all your mom can do is hound you because the turkey was a bit dry, not even commenting positively on everything else you did...that is legalism, religion, the law.

Man made expectations enforced upon another as a means of defining how you may be accepted in that person's presence is religion, legalism, and the law.

Paul said in Galatians 3:21 that if there was a law that God could have given that would have made mankind righteous, he would have given it. But there was not a single law that in and of itself that could have produced righteousness.

The Law makes it such that when you try to obey command #342 and #52, you are breaking rules #60 and #104...thus Paul said elsewhere that if you break one law you are guilty of all. The more you try to obey the more you end up getting in trouble for breaking some other expectation.

And that's the way it is with religion...you just can't do any one thing to be accepted in that person's, or God's sight. How many have yelled at their parents: "Why can't I ever please you! Just tell me what I can do to make you happy and I will do it!" 

If you can identify with that, you were raised in a religious spirit, even if God was nowhere to be seen in your home. Is it any wonder that spirit is transferred to your True faith in Christ?

When a person becomes born again their minds are not renewed to the freedom in Christ so they unconsciously transfer the relationship they had with their dad to the heavenly Father. If they were beaten and they thought getting slapped around was how love was expressed then they think God is always trying to punish them. (actual case I know)

If they were raised in a strict by-the-book home, they think God is like that.

In fact, Paul said in Galatians 3:24-26 that The Law--the external rules and regulations--were merely a tutor to bring us to Christ.

Repentance is still the first name in salvation. The Law shows us we are sinners. As Paul said, I would not have known coveting except the law said not to do it.

But now you are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. That's why Paul said in Galatians 4:1-7 that if you live under legalism you are constantly working like a hired hand in your own house. However the truth is that we are children of God, and our hearts cry out Abba (daddy), Father

We are now heirs of God's kingdom...not street sweepers groveling in the dirt.

As I quoted earlier, God does not live in a temple (building) made with hands, but in Him we live and move and have our being.

We have this treasure in earthen vessels. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit (I Cor 6:19). We are now governed from within by the Holy Spirit, in mutual submission to each other, perceiving the grace in each other and honoring each other accordingly.

As quoted in Hebrews 10:16-17, God has written his law in our hearts and minds, and placed the Holy Spirit within to guide us and lead us into what we are to do.

Paul said in Romans 13:8-10 that if we love each other as ourselves and love God then we have fulfilled the law...what God requires.

Many in relationship based Christianity and house church have a hard time believing that it really is this simple; that they don't have to be subject to external rules and regulations to be kept on the straight and narrow, but that they must listen to Christ in them and upon their own initiative and integrity do what is right from the inside out.

Jesus is interested in making disciples, and the first part of that is to restore or bring up from within integrity, the ability to discipline oneself, to walk in what is right. The religion and traditional church has created a weak and anemic Christian populace used to being told how to give their money, how to become involved through some program of that church, that if they aren't in church they are missing God...all defined for them externally by some pastor's expectations upon the congregation.

Jesus works from within. He seeks to build us from within. Often in house church circles I've witnessed a lag time of 1-2 years between the time a person rejects religion and the time they start acting like a mature believer acting on his or her own integrity and initiative.

Religion takes power from the individual and places it upon that holy man or woman of God, causing a person in the pew to become progressively weaker until they are irrelevant to the society and culture around them.

The Father and Jesus seek to empower people, to require them to be individuals able to use their own brains to do what is right, to give where there is need, to be ready to use their (His) spiritual power to heal the sick and intercede for those in need...listening for directions from the Father and Christ within through the Spirit!

Think within. Think loving your neighbor, doing what is right without being told, loving God and man out of a pure heart and motivation...and you will be free from man made religion.

Thoughts for today...

John Fenn
cwowi.org